The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson
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Название: The Alvarez & Pescoli Series
Автор: Lisa Jackson
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика
Серия: An Alvarez & Pescoli Novel
isbn: 9781420150322
isbn:
Chandler said, “They only make mistakes when they’re pressured. We haven’t been able to do that with this guy.”
“Yet,” Pescoli said. “We will.”
“We’d better.” Chandler was eyeing the surrounding woods.
“I don’t think she’s been dead long,” Watershed said. “The body’s warmer than the others and no snow is covering the tracks. Maybe the dogs can come up with something.” He squinted, his gaze following Gage and the broken path in the snow, the killer’s trail. “He went out the same way he went in.”
“Just like before,” Alvarez noted.
The crime scene team arrived and got down to business, collecting any kind of evidence from the body and surrounding area, taking pictures of the scene and victim from all angles, searching for anything the killer might have left behind.
“She’s not Jillian Rivers,” Alvarez said abruptly.
Pescoli nodded. “She doesn’t look like the picture on her driver’s license. The physical description’s all wrong. Rivers is around five seven and weighs around a hundred and thirty and this woman couldn’t be more than five one or two, barely tips the scale at a hundred pounds.”
Alvarez braced herself as she studied the corpse. “Rivers has hazel eyes and long dark brown hair; this one’s blond. Could have been dyed and cut, I suppose, but I don’t think so. Looks natural.” The victim’s pubic hair was a dark shade of blond and her dead, sightless eyes were bright blue. “Eye color is wrong, too. And check out the note.”
WAR T SC I N
“If our theory is right, then Jillian Rivers’s initials should be somewhere in the message. There’s an R, which could be for Rivers, but no J. Instead we’ve got an A.” Alvarez shook her head. “This isn’t right, unless he’s changed his MO.”
“No way,” Chandler said, shaking her head as she studied the scene from twenty feet away. “He wouldn’t. He’s toying with us, yes, but trying to tell us something. He wants us to figure out what it is, so he can prove how smart he is.”
Alvarez watched as Mikhail, a forensic technician, removed the note with tweezers, gently placing it in a plastic bag, and held it out to her. “Did you want a closer look?”
“Thanks.” She pinched the edge of the bag and stepped away from the woman’s frozen body, grateful for the chance to turn her back on the gruesome death scene. Although she had learned to hide it, especially on the job, Selena Alvarez struggled when it came time to process violent crime scenes. Especially crimes against women. Her cross to bear, as her grandmother Rosarita would say.
She liked to think that turmoil gave her the edge when it came to catching a psycho like this, a man who made a game out of killing.
The bastard.
It was also the reason she’d avoided employment in forensics. Much as she appreciated the science of it, she couldn’t stomach it. Now, as the crime scene unit did their job, carefully bagging the woman’s frozen hands, checking her body, combing the lone fir tree and the surrounding area, Alvarez stared at the most recent note, determined to work the case from this angle. Whether it was meant to be unscrambled, translated or decoded, she wasn’t sure, but she sure as hell was going to spend some time trying to figure it out.
It was like finding a needle in a haystack.
Pescoli frowned as she eyed the rugged terrain that surrounded the latest crime scene. Mountains, ravines, frozen creek beds, curving rim roads. They’d been searching that area for Jillian Rivers, to no avail. Now the search would be on for this woman’s vehicle.
If the weather held.
A goddamned needle in a haystack.
She thought about the topographical maps at the office. Maybe she could use her computer program and come up with potential sites for the next killing ground.
There were dozens of small meadows in these mountains and it would take forever to search them all out, but what choice did they have?
“At least we know Jillian Rivers isn’t dead and we missed her. There’s no J on the note. All the initials have bodies attached,” Alvarez pointed out.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean she’s safe. He might have her ready to go,” Pescoli said.
Alvarez stepped closer to the tracks. “True, but he was here in the past few hours. These are fresh, not covered in snow, and the weather’s been clear only a few hours.”
“Not much consolation there. The prick could be doing Jillian Rivers now for all we know,” Pescoli said.
The whomp, whomp, whomp of helicopter rotor blades could be heard approaching. Already, it seemed, the state police were going airborne to search the area. Good, Pescoli thought, they might be able to see something from the air that would take days of good weather and a lot of luck to see on the ground.
“What the hell does the note mean?” Pescoli asked, staring over her partner’s shoulder at the latest note.
“Beats me.” Brewster glowered at the block letters and weird star.
“How about ‘WAR TO SCIENCE’?” Watershed asked. “Maybe this guy’s a religious nut. Maybe this is a sacrifice, some kind of rite.”
“Satanic rite,” Pescoli added.
“Could be ‘WART SCIENCE.’” Although his face was red from the cold, Pete Watershed wasn’t about to give up. “Or ‘WAR OF THE SCIENTISTS’ or even ‘WARY OF THIS COIN.’”
“Then where would Jillian Rivers’s initials fit in?” Alvarez asked. “I mean, assuming she’s next.” She glanced up at Pescoli. “The psycho must still have her.”
“Son of a bitch,” Pescoli whispered. “This guy just won’t give up.”
“Or…‘WAR OF THE SCHOOL INSTITUTIONS’…Hell, if that’s the case, we got a whole lot more victims.” Watershed was worried, scratching his jaw.
“Of course he won’t give up.” Stephanie Chandler walked the perimeter of the crime scene. “He can’t. He lives for this.” She read the note at a distance. “If anything, he’ll escalate. We need to be looking for a missing person with the initials AR or RA in her early twenties. Who found this body again?” She turned her attention to Sheriff Grayson, who was standing twenty feet from the lone fir tree, hands stuffed in his pockets, lips flat against his teeth, as he eyed the dead woman.
“Eldon and Mischa York, who were out hiking. They have a summer cabin out here and came for a week. Their story is that they’d been cooped up with the storm and took advantage of the break in the weather to get a little exercise. The good news is that they saw the scene and all the footprints and hightailed it back to their cabin, climbed in their four-wheel-drive and drove to a spot where they had cell phone service, then called 911.” Grayson finally turned his attention to the FBI agent. “Both of ’em are waiting in their rig, if you want to talk to them.” He motioned a gloved hand toward the access road, where all the vehicles from the sheriff’s СКАЧАТЬ